2023-09-24 05:39:22
The project serves as a signal as German industry is going through a period of slump, faced with high energy costs and drying up order books from abroad.
Added to this are increasingly strict regulatory requirements and more attractive subsidies offered elsewhere, in the United States in particular, which are all vectors pushing entrepreneurs to review their “made in Germany” establishments.
3,200 jobs
BMW, for its part, intends to “invest several hundred million euros” in this factory “at the heart of the development of electric vehicles in Germany”, maintains Alexander Kiy, head of the Strasskirchen factory project at the manufacturer.
The planned site will ultimately employ more than 3,200 people and deliver 600,000 high-voltage batteries per year, to then be installed in new electric models coming out of Bavarian plants in Regensburg, Munich and Dingolfing, BMW’s largest European car plant.
Suffice it to say that a rejection of the project on Sunday would seriously compromise the planned launch around 2025 of the new range of electric vehicles from the manufacturer of the X3.
As batteries are large and heavy, their production plants must be located as close as possible to vehicle assembly lines. BMW is already applying this strategy for its factories abroad, in Hungary, the United States, Mexico and China.
Chance or threat?
The municipality of Strasskirchen was chosen by also meeting this proximity criterion. But a section of residents opposes the automobile giant, fearing that their rural territory, south of the Danube and the Bavarian Forest, will become an industrial zone, with an increase in road traffic.
“More than 100 hectares of prime arable land would be destroyed forever,” an error “from the perspective of climate change,” says Thomas Spötzl, 44, spokesperson for a movement that wants to stand up to BMW .
On the contrary, the manufacturer offers “an immense opportunity for the region to invest in sustainable technologies and jobs of the future”, replies Martin Götz, 45, native of Strasskirchen and spokesperson for an association supporting the project. ‘factory.
The two camps have been tearing each other apart for months.
“For Bavaria, and for the whole of Germany, it must still be possible to create a large industrial site of this type,” says Armin Soller, mayor of the neighboring village of Irlbach, also affected by the site planned by BMW.
In the event of a favorable vote on Sunday, BMW would counter a movement of company defections in the canton.
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